Henry and Georgia's Foster Care Case

Right now, Case Manager and Guardian Ad Litem have serious doubts that Henry and Georgia's mom will be able to complete her case plan and prove to the court that she can provide for and protect her four kids. The State will likely pursue a termination of her parental rights, meaning that she will no longer legally be their mother. If that happens, they won't be able to return to her care or live with her ever again.

Georgia and her little sister Eve have the same father. He's still in the picture. He may be able to regain custody of them in the future. That's still waaaaaay up in the air, but it is possible none the less. If their mom loses her rights to parent the children, Georgia and Eve may eventually be able to live with their dad.

Henry and the oldest sibling, Susannah, both have different fathers from each other and from Georgia and Eve. No one knows who their fathers are and the court has listed their legal fathers as "unknown." If their mom loses her rights to parent them, Susannah and Henry will need to be adopted. No one in their mother's family is suitable to adopt young children, so they will need to be adopted by non-relatives.

Case Manager seems to be thinking that Henry is on the path toward adoption. If that is the case, we will be asked if we'd like to adopt him. Husband and I have been talking about this possibility. Georgia, however, is still in limbo until her father proves whether he can parent her, and that may take a long time to figure out. If he can parent her, she will eventually return to his custody. If he cannot parent her, his parental rights will be terminated and she will either be adopted by another family member on her father's side or she will need to be adopted by a non-relative (such as her foster parents).

It'll be a few months until we know whether Case Manager is in fact going to request of the court that the mom's parental rights get terminated. And then after that there has to be a hearing and then we have to wait for the judge's decision. So nothing is going to happen with regard to Henry until well after the new year. I'll post updates as they happen.